


Roses are red, violets are blue, Mark is cute

by lululele



Series: winter, spring, summer, fall (in love) [2]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Gen, M/M, actually everyone in a pile of friendship, feat a lot of pokemon names, fluff and cheese, haechan disses everyone, inspired by the countless 'markeu gwiyeowoo' chenle says on broadcast, jaemin puts him back in his place, markhyuck friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-13
Updated: 2017-03-13
Packaged: 2018-10-02 15:28:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10221392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lululele/pseuds/lululele
Summary: Chenle really likes pikachu. He also really likes calling Mark cute.Jisung is absolutely not the slightest bit bothered by any of those things. Really.(alternate summary: Chenle compares people to pokemon.)





	

**Author's Note:**

> Pokemon go is still a craze in south korea sobs i wish i was there less people would judge me for playing

Age really is an overrated concept, Jisung reaffirms. Despite looking at it from all angles of consideration, having to call Chenle a _'hyung'_ still boggles him to no end.

First of all, he’s only two and a half months older. Secondly, he still looks and sounds prepubescent, whereas Jisung has this hella cool deep(er) voice and massive adult hands. But putting physical traits aside, the pinnacle of it all is that most of the time, Chenle behaves like an elementary school kid. Jisung is not even exaggerating.

Evidence A: _the unrelenting tug on his sleeve._

Jisung has tried everything: from gentle verbal rejection to not-so-gentle verbal argument, physical rejection, shrugging, swatting, flicking and slapping away the hand only for it to sneak back time and time again. He’s pretty sure his right sleeve is now permanently longer than the left.

“I’m reaaally trying to study here, so please. Go ask someone else,” he pleads to his history textbook, refusing to look at the barnacle clinging to his arm.

“But Jisuuungggg!” Ah, here it comes.

Evidence B: _the whiny voice._

As he previously mentioned, Chenle has a relatively high-pitched voice for someone his age, which somehow goes even higher when he’s speaking Korean. Top that off with the childish tone he loves to use and you get an overgrown nagging baby for your hearing pleasure.

“They’re all away for the school camp, did you forget?”

“Isn’t it only for the second years? Mark is home, go ask him.”

Chenle slams his unoccupied hand on Jisung’s desk, suddenly all up in his personal space. “Jisung,” he chides, “Mark is a third year student. He’s busy.”

“So am I??”

“Jisung,” now he sighs, “You can’t compare middle school to high school. They’re two totally different things.”

Increasingly often these days, he finds himself wishing Chenle was still terrible at Korean. He brainstorms for a retort to put an end to this one-sided tug of war, and in the process makes the mistake of looking at Chenle’s face. Shit. Anything but the Subtle Pout.

“...what do I get.” Since he’s already lost, the least he could do is pretend to cave in for a bribe.

For his part, Chenle doesn’t even try to hide the triumphant grin stretching his mouth wide open. It’s been three months, yet sometimes Jisung is still fascinated by the way Chenle gets excited for the littlest things.

“I’ll buy you a hot dog from MC Ari. Now c’mon. C’mon, let’s go now! Before pikachu disappears!” Chenle pulls on Jisung’s arm with renewed force, barely giving him a chance to grab his phone.

 

Like the rest of his peers, Jisung enjoys playing Pokemon Go. He was the one to introduce it to Chenle, even. A grave mistake he trully regrets. Chenle is something else when it comes to the game. It’s not the first time he’s roped into accompanying him hunt pokemon in the middle of the night, and because Jisung is weak, likely not the last time either. The list of excuses grows longer each time Jisung refuses. Initially he was afraid of the dark, then he was afraid of getting lost, getting mugged, getting hit by a car, getting kidnapped, fainting in the middle of the road, and all sorts of other ridiculous scenarios. Jisung’s only response is to tell him he watches too much dramas.

He bumps into the back of Chenle’s head when the boy abruptly stops walking, concentrating fully on his phone.

“It’s here, it’s here!” Chenle lets go of Jisung’s hand to catch the yellow monster. Jisung too, boots up the app on his phone because who doesn’t like pikachu?

Apparently pikachu doesn’t like him back, since it runs away on his third throw. Meanwhile Chenle is doing his victory screech, hopping up and down and shoving his phone in Jisung’s face. “I got it! Wohoo~”

Jisung gives him a stank face. “That’s your fifty-seventh pikachu. Why do you need to catch so many?”

“Because they’re cute.” He taps the screen to coo at the animation. “What should I call this one?”

“Number fifty seven.”

“Oh, I know!” He smiles to himself, typing without acknowledging Jisung’s suggestion.

Peering at the phone over Chenle’s shoulder, he frowns at the name. It reads _‘Mark is cute’_ with a heart symbol at the end. “Why Mark?”

“Because Mark is cute. And his hair is yellow like pikachu.”

Something feels wrong with that explanation, but he can’t pinpoint exactly what. Aside from pokemon go, Chenle’s obsessions include calling other people—especially Mark—cute. Which is rather ironic since no one else acts cute as much as him.

“You got your pikachu so let’s go back now. It’s late.”

“Yes sir,” he mock salutes, then drops his arm and curls it around Jisung’s elbow. They march like that for the two blocks distance it takes to get home and Jisung tries not to ponder on why he feels a whole lot better afterwards.

 

* * *

 

“Where are you guys going?” Mark calls out from the shipwreck that used to be their couch. He’s surrounded by stacks of papers, right hand taking down notes and left hand perched on a textbook, gripping a highlighter. He looks about ready to drop dead.

“I’m treating Jisung to MC Ari,” replies Chenle, eyeing the empty can of energy drink on the floor.

They both jump a little at the guttural sound Mark makes. “Can you get one for me too? I’m famished,” he drawls, but his hands never stop moving. “I’ll pay you back later.”

“Sure. But you should probably get some rest first.” Jisung can probably fit a couple of peas on his each of his eyebags.

“I will. After I’m done with this.” In Mark-speak, that translates to: not in the near future.

Such is the life of Mark Lee Minhyung, student council member, captain of the basketball and badminton club, and the class president. He’s that guy everyone and their mother knows. He also hasn’t grown an inch in over a year. Jisung thinks it’s because of all the responsibility weighing him down.

“See?” Chenle pokes him once they are outdoor. “High school is a totally different world.”

“More like Mark lives in a totally different world. Not even a college student doing part time job is as busy as him.”

Chenle only hums, focus already shifting to his game. Jisung clicks his tongue. He pulls on the latex ear attached to Chenle’s phone case.

“Stop hurting pikachu,” Chenle snaps, swiftly smacking him away.

Jisung cradles his hand, face contorted with disbelief. “Pikachu feels no pain,” he gasps, “Unlike me.”

Chenle starts giving him the side-eye. He couldn’t keep it up for long before a grin breaks out on his face. “Jisung is so cute~”

“I’m not. I’m cool.” He repels Chenle’s shoulder bump with a shrug, ignoring his loud string of ‘no’s.

They’re in the queue when Mark sends a new text, asking them to buy five more hot dogs. MC Ari recites a whole speech on why growing kids shouldn’t eat so much junk food yet gives them a bonus anyway because Chenle is secretly his favourite customer. Jisung wouldn’t admit it, but he thinks it’s a little unfair when he’s been a regular for so much longer. Damn Chenle and his charms.

 

It takes them some time to register the scene in the living room, both still bickering over who gets the bonus hot dog. Once they do, however, Jisung almost drops the whole box of food.

Jeno has Mark locked in his grip, holding back his upper body. Jaemin sits on Mark’s knees, presumably to restrain his legs. Right in front of them Haechan and Renjun are tidying up the mess on their couch—or more specifically, Renjun is neatly setting aside Mark’s papers and stationeries while Haechan ruthlessly shoves everything into a plastic bag. He points an accusing finger towards Jisung and Chenle when he sees them gaping in the doorway.

“Did you forget what happened the last time he got like this?!”

Chenle turns to Jisung in a silent question.

“He tried to cook instant ramen and set off the smoke detector. And fire alarm,” he whispers, recounting the incident last year.

“ _And_ got all of us detention because the security guards were pissed,” Haechan adds, tying up the bag and flinging it away.

“Did anything happen this time?” Chenle, always asking the important questions.

“Nothing big,” Jaemin reassures them the same time Haechan scoffs, “The idiot stapled his own thumb.”

Ouch. Jisung cringes and folds his thumb in second-hand pain.

“Give me that.” Haechan gestures to the food, setting the box on the table once Jisung hands it over. He narrows his eyes at Mark. “If you want your books back, eat this and sleep immediately.”

Mark, trapped, starving and half-conscious, nods weakly.

“I think you can let him go now,” Renjun tells Jeno, and Jaemin, who seems to be enjoying this more than he should.

 

A short moment later everyone is sitting around the table, munching quietly. Jisung breaks the silence.

“When did you guys get back?”

Jeno checks his watch. “Around twenty minutes ago, I think.”

“Just in time to watch Mark trip and almost break the cabinet looking for a band-aid,” Jaemin elaborates with a smile.

A piece of bun flies and lands on Jeno’s thigh when Jisung snorts. He flicks it back in disgust.

Beside Jisung, Chenle cackles loudly. “Mark is cute!”

“Why do you keep calling him cute when he’s not.”

Mark stops inhaling his food and looks at Haechan, visibly offended. The other replies him with a blank stare.

“But Mark really is cute,” Chenle argues, “isn’t he?” He asks the other four and receives various vague responses.

“He has a pikachu called ‘Mark is cute’.” Jisung throws that out to get the conversation going because he too wants to know the answer to Haechan’s question.

“Why would you do that to pikachu?” Haechan is exasperated now. Jisung can sympathise. He’s the only one out of them all who hasn’t caught a single pikachu. Even Mark, who plays once in a blue moon, managed to get two of them.

“I use all of your names for my pokemon too! I’ll show you guys.” Chenle stumbles for his phone, using it as an excuse to escape Haechan’s grip on his shoulder. “Here, see?”

They crowd around him, each person trying to find their name in the extensive list of creatures. After a chaotic period of scrolling, with everyone putting their finger on the screen and sliding it in all sorts of directions, Chenle screams at them to step back for a while. He huffs and swings the arm that was caught beneath all the other limbs, and moves to sit on the couch to present his phone.

 

“Renjun is charmander. Because of his hair.” He clicks on the fire monster and directs their attention to its mouth. “Look at the little fangs. That’s so Renjun.”

“But Renjun only has one pointy tooth,” Jeno interjects.

Chenle glances at Jeno, then at Renjun, pausing for a moment. “Doesn’t matter. It’s the overall image that counts.” He continues scrolling down. “Next is Jeno. You’re cyndaquil.”

Mark, now fed and hydrated with a speck of colour on his face, hums approvingly. “That’s actually pretty similar.”

“It’s the bracket-shaped eyes,” points Haechan. “Jeno, try smiling now.”

Jeno does and the group erupts in a chorus of ‘ _ooh_ ’ and ‘ _ahh_ ’s. Chenle nods to himself, happy with the undisputed approval of the comparison.

“Next. Jaemin is a jigglypuff.”

“What!?”

Chenle holds out his hand to stop the incoming rebuttal from Haechan. “Let me finish. Look at the smile, that permanent little smile.” They scoot closer to inspect in detail. “And the big, big eyes.”

After some time passes, Mark suddenly mutters, “I feel like they’re staring into my soul.”

Chenle snaps his fingers. “Exactly. Just look.” He points to the right.

Jisung follows his line of sight and is startled to see Jaemin looking back at him, smiling.

“Jigglypuff is really cute, but if you look at it for too long it gets a bit creepy,” Chenle speaks nonchalantly, as if he didn’t just indirectly call Jaemin creepy. “Okay, I’ll go on. Here’s Mark the cutie. He’s my newest pikachu.”

Haechan was already scowling, but now he’s full-on brooding at the amount of pikachu Chenle boasts. “This one makes the least sense. And how on earth did you get so many? This is so unfair.”

“What can I say? They love me.”

“Yeah rig—wait. Hold on.” Fast as lightning, he snatches the phone in Chenle’s grip. “Did you really use my name for a pidgey?”

“Well, you—”

“Pidgey? Really? Let me take back my word, this doesn’t make sense at all. There are like, hundreds of other pokemon, and all I am is a _pidgey_? I didn’t know you hate me this much, I’m so hurt right now. Did I wrong you somehow, is this some kind of twisted revenge?”

“You’ve wronged everyone,” Jaemin quips with a smile. Jeno covers his mouth and quickly drags him away from Haechan.

Chenle makes use of the momentary distraction to take his phone back. “Stop putting down pidgey, they’re the reason I can level up fast.” He clicks on Haechan’s namesake and forces him to look at the screen. “If you only look at the appearance, pidgey is actually quite cool, no? Look at the face. It really looks like you, especially when you pull back your bangs.”

“...I can see it. Sort of.”

All eyes turn to Renjun. Chenle grabs his hand and pulls him into a passionate hug.

“There's some kind of resemblance,” chips in Mark, and he’s promptly yanked into the embrace.

Haechan looks on in distaste. “You’re only saying that to piss me off. Whatever. Who’s next?”

A hand emerges from the cluster of bodies. Chenle props his chin on Renjun’s shoulder and scrolls to the bottom of the page.

Jisung spots his name and frowns. “Why am I only a 10cp squirtle?”

“Yeah, why is he?” Haechan pipes up. “Squirtle is way too cute for him.”

Jisung now knows he made the right decision not to defend Haechan earlier despite thinking the pidgey comparison was a stretch. The guy deserves it.

“I know I said it’s all about the image, but this little buddy is special.” Chenle smiles fondly. “He’s my first pokemon.”

Taking a second look at it, Jisung notices the yellow star marking the pokemon as a favourite.

“So?”

He watches an annoyed huff replace Chenle’s smile and never mind about pidgey; even rattata is too good for Haechan.

“So,” he stops, shutting and opening his mouth as if hesitating whether or not to say the next part. “Well, Jisung is my first friend here, so…”

They share a brief moment of eye contact. Chenle quirks up the corners of his lips and shifts behind Renjun, hiding half of his face away from Jisung’s view. He can feel the atmosphere changing; he knows he should say something during times like this, but his mind keeps going back to that warm smile Chenle has when he talks about the squirtle—about him, really—and he’s unable to think of anything else.

Fortunately or not, Haechan is present to ruin the mood.

“What is this, disney channel?”

“I think it’s cute.” Jaemin rises from the floor to stretch his gangly body. “Don’t mind Haechan, he’s tired from the camp and is therefore extra annoying now. He’ll be back to the usual amount of annoying after some quality sleep.”

Haechan curses and throws a ball of oily wrapping paper at Jaemin, who smoothly evades it without even looking. Undeterred by the missed aim, he collects the paper ball and follows Jaemin inside his room.

“Now that he said it, the camp was exhausting.” Renjun leans back on Chenle. Jeno nods, pushing himself up.

“I’m gonna go rest too.”

Renjun swiftly untangles himself from Chenle and blocks Jeno’s path with his hand. “Help me up,” he asks, waving the hand and cocking his head to the limp body beside him. “Then I’ll help you drag Mark to his bed.”

Jeno lets out a loud groan. Reluctantly, he heaves Renjun up and then true to their words, they drag Mark by the arms across the floor and into his room. It looks like a scene straight out of crime reenactment shows. All that’s missing is the blood trail left on the crime scene. Jisung hears a soft chuckle coming from behind and abandons all thoughts of murder scenarios.

“Mark is cute,” Chenle simply says. He still avoids looking at Jisung but it’s just the two of them now and he’s definitely not talking to anyone else, so Jisung gathers up the courage to spit out the remark that’s been stuck in his throat every time Chenle calls Mark cute.

“You’re cuter.”

His voice cracks. Jisung wishes desperately for Haechan to come barging out and give snide comments but of course that doesn’t happen because he’s not that lucky.

“...what?” He could have genuinely not hear him clearly, or he might have caught it and thought he heard wrong all the same. Jisung is just going to take this as a second chance.

“I think you’re cuter.”

At long last, it feels good to say that. Although the feeling is rapidly evaporating when he glimpses on Chenle’s unreadable expression.

“Oh,” is his only response. The kid he couldn’t pay to stop talking is now reduced to silence by his words. Jisung has accomplished the impossible. He’s playing a funeral anthem in his mind, laying down flowers on his imaginary tombstone when Chenle finally opens his mouth and looks at him.

“Well… don’t tell Mark okay?” he whispers, eyes darting. Jisung tries to ignore the twinge of annoyance from hearing Mark’s name yet again to focus on what Chenle has to tell him. “I think you’re the cutest.”

Now it’s his turn to respond with an “Oh.”

Jisung doesn’t even like being called cute, but this time, this time he can’t even deny it makes him happy.

“I’m cool though,” he retorts, trying to conceal his growing smile.

“Nononononono,” Chenle laughs loudly, back to his usual self. It’s noisy and grating to the ear, according to Haechan. It’s currently Jisung’s favourite sound in the world.

“Jisung is the cutest~”

**Author's Note:**

> this is basically a pokemon fic, forgive me  
> i'd written a whole chunk revolving around their heights but then the fanaccounts from their fansign revealed not only chenle, but jeno's also 174cm now and so i had to delete that part rip me why do they grow up so fast ;;  
> i plan on making this a 4-part series but future installations will probably take longer to finish since i'll start working part-time soon, but! i'll try my best to update asap hahaha  
> thank you all so much for the comments and kudos left on the previous part, they've really got me going <333


End file.
